Banana Mochas and Second Chances
by chocolatequeen
Summary: The Doctor didn't come back to ask Rose a second time. A year later and newly regenerated, he runs into her in Costa Coffee. He's a no second chances kind of man, but will he get one himself? Coffee shop AU with a twist.


The Doctor didn't believe in second chances. Funny for a time traveler, maybe, but of course you can't cross your own timeline anyway, so there were no second chances to be found in time travel.

But sometimes you _could_ find a second chance behind the counter at Costa, if the second chance you were looking for was a blonde girl with a mouth a bit too wide and a smile that teased you with her tongue.

"Rose Tyler!" he said, without thinking about it.

Her eyebrows drew together. "I'm sorry; do I know you?"

The Doctor cursed himself silently. Of course. He'd regenerated since the last time he'd seen her. "Ah, it's been a long time and I don't look much like I used to." He tugged at his ear and willed her not to ask any questions. "I'm not surprised you don't recognise me."

Thankfully, the coffee shop was busy, so she didn't have time to interrogate him further. The Doctor took the banana mocha she'd made him and retreated to a table where he could watch her without looking like a creep.

It had been exactly a year, linear time, since she'd saved him from the Nestene Consciousness. She had to be what, about 21 now? Some of the softness in her features had melted away as she grew from a girl into a woman, but her smile hadn't changed and neither had the bright curiosity in her eyes that drew him to her just as much now as it had when they'd met.

It had been a year for the Doctor, too. A year of travelling alone, which the TARDIS had never approved of. He ran his hand through his still-new hair and conceded that his ship might have had a point. The incident that had caused this regeneration had been ridiculous, really—something he should have been able to handle easily, and would have, if he hadn't been alone.

Lost in his memories, the Doctor nearly jumped out of his skin when Rose sat down across from him. "All right then, who are you?" she asked. "I'm on my break, and I'm curious."

He hesitated. It was hard enough to explain regeneration to humans who saw it happen. Showing up in their lives with a whole different face tended to be a bit much for them to swallow.

"It'll be hard to believe," he warned. "Promise to stay until I'm done with my story?"

Rose leaned back in her chair and tilted her head. "Yeah," she said after examining him for a long moment. "Why not? It's not like you can do anything to me here."

The Doctor pressed his tongue to the back of his teeth, then started at the beginning of the story. "About a year ago, you worked for a department store called Henrik's. You came down to the basement after close—I never asked why—and you were surrounded by Autons. Living shop window dummies. They had you backed against a wall, and then someone took your hand and told you to run."

"Doctor?" Rose looked him up and down, then shook her head. "But… no. You don't look anything like him!"

"I'm an alien, remember?" he pointed out, and she tilted her head in acknowledgement. "My people…" He swallowed; he was the only one of his people left. "If I'm fatally injured, instead of dying, my body will completely remake itself. I get a brand new outside and a few new quirks, while everything up here—" He tapped the side of his head. "—stays the same. It's called regeneration."

She leaned against the table and stared at him through narrowed eyes, obviously trying to find something familiar in his new face. "Prove it," she said finally.

The Doctor—or the bloke claiming to be the Doctor—tapped his fingers on the table in a rapid rhythm. Rose took in all the differences between this man and the one who'd saved her life in Henrik's. Still tall, but skinny and with lots of brown hair instead of a dark crew cut. His brown coat had swished about his ankles when he'd walked away from the counter earlier, so different from the worn black leather jacket he'd worn when they'd met.

"The day after we met," he said finally, "you and I tracked down the Nestene Consciousness, hiding in a secret base underneath the London Eye. They managed to capture me before I could neutralise them, but you grabbed onto a chain and swung across that vat of plastic, destroying them and saving the entire city."

Rose was almost certain now, but it was still possible that someone else had made the Doctor tell them stories that would would encourage her to trust them. She wasn't sure what would convince her. Seeing his ship again, maybe?

"You saved my life in there," the Doctor told her quietly. "And I asked if you wanted to come with me, but you insisted you had to stay here and take care of Ricky."

There was something so very Doctor-ish about the wrong name and the pout on his face. "Definitely the same man," she muttered.

A cheeky grin crossed his face and the Doctor waggled his fingers in greeting. "Hello!" he chirped.

"Hello!" Rose said, unable to hold back an answering smile. "You know, as soon as you closed the door, I knew I'd made a mistake. But you were gone, and I was stuck."

"Oh, but you had your mum and your boyfriend. There's nothing wrong with wanting to take care of people."

Rose had the distinct feeling he was testing her, wondering if she'd really changed since the last time they'd met. "Nah," she said, striving for a disinterested tone. "I mean, people leave home all the time, don't they?"

The Doctor tipped his chair up on the back two legs. "I suppose they do."

"Besides, staying with Mickey didn't do me much good." She wrinkled her nose. "He started dating someone else about two months after you left."

The Doctor's left eyebrow arched up to his hairline. "Did he now? Well that just proves he's as much of an idiot as I thought."

"Oi!"

"Leaving you?" The Doctor scoffed. "Definitely an idiot move."

Rose ignored the possible implications behind the words. The Doctor had turned her head when they'd met, and he was certainly fit now, but she'd known him all of two days, total.

"You left me," she pointed out, focusing on the actual text of the conversation, rather than possible subtext.

He furrowed his brow and took a sip of his coffee. "True," he said, stretching the vowel out. "But I came back."

The Doctor pushed his chair back and stood up. "Rose Tyler," he said and held his hand out, "would you like to travel with me?"

She pursed her lips and looked up at him. "Is it always this mad?" she asked.

The Doctor threw his head back and laughed. "More often than not," he admitted. "But why would you want to live a normal life when you could have one that's a bit mad?"

Rose tapped her forefinger against her chin. "All right, fair enough," she said finally. "Can I finish my shift, or does this offer expire in the next five minutes?"

The Doctor rocked back on his heels and giggled—he actually giggled. "Go on," he told her, waving her back towards the kitchen. "Finish your shift. Because when you're done, Rose Tyler, I am going to take you places you can't even imagine."

The last two hours of Rose's shift dragged by. Making fancy coffee drinks for City boys had never been her dream job, but now that something else was finally on the horizon, every non-fat, no-foam, six-shot hazelnut latte grated.

In between customers, she made arrangements with her coworkers to cover the rest of her shifts, and let her boss know she was quitting. The big Indian man was confused by her abrupt departure, but in the end, he'd shaken her hand and told her he knew she'd always wanted to go travelling.

Finally, she pulled her last shot. When she handed the tourist his mocha, she whipped her apron off and spun in a quick circle, struggling not to break out in a dance right there behind the espresso machine.

The Doctor was waiting for her by the door when she stepped out of the kitchen with her bag slung over her shoulder. Rose met his gaze from across the room and felt her cheeks stretch as she smiled broadly. She sauntered over to him, pushed the door open, and took his hand.

Five minutes later, they were walking together along the Embankment when a small ship blazed through London's airspace and sliced into Big Ben, sending the famous clock tower crashing down. The Doctor tightened his grip on Rose's hand, and when she looked up at him, a manic grin had spread across his face.

"Rose Tyler," he drawled, " _run!_ "


End file.
